Parallels in the Lines
by Metronome I Hear
Summary: A collection of AU One-shots related to the story "There are Stars in your Eyes"
1. Musings Upon the Shoulders of the Atlas

**Summery:** AU in which Sawada Tsunayoshi and Hibari Kyoya have somehow become Gods.

 **Musings upon the Shoulders of the Atlas**

They sat upon their thrones and gazed outwards across the world. It died and lived and burned and froze and the two ( _Brothers perhaps, sometimes sisters, sometimes friends, and always enemies._ ) had watched it rise from the ashes a million times previous and would watch it a million times again.

"Ah," the first said, eyes like smoke and mouth speaking in not but riddles, "'Twould seem that they have fallen again, trapped once more in the great beyond."

"But of course," remarked the other, eyes glimmering with the light of the universe, chaos and law warring in their blood and spilling upon the residents of the world, "Nothing does not have an end."

The first smiled, lips spreading outwards far beyond the limits of what might be called human, "But all ends are simply a new beginning. Death is not but the next chapter. You know this as well as I."

The other did know of what the first spoke. ( _They remembered their younger days, when they had gallivanted across the world, leaving not but confusion in their wake. They remembered the days they once spent upon the surface of the world, suffering as all humans do._ ) But that life mattered not. The clock had rung and they had breathed their last and now here they were, sat upon the stone that anchored the world to the ever turning cogs of the universe.

No. Nothing mattered at all in the face of time ever turning.


	2. Baby, You're Drenched in Blood

**Summery:** A darker AU of Reborn's and Tsuna's meting in Chapter 8.

 **Baby, You're Drenched in Blood**

Chains rattled and creaked and groaned as a figure smirked under the shade of his fedora. It stood tall, even if it was hazy and indistinct, wrapped up and tied to the small body in front of it.

"Ciaossu," the child said, seemingly unaware of the spector chained to the pacifier he wore, wrapped around his neck like a nose growing ever tighter, "My name is Reborn. I'm your new home tutor."

And how the words seemed to croon sweet whispers at him, unspoken promises of blood and death and gore. It sung of shadowed hunts and days spent bathing in crimson, of bones rattling in the child's head.

Tsuna stared at the child, horrified and awed in equal measure. It was beautiful and terrifying, exhilarating yet oh so deadly, a slow waltz with a shinigami.

"All that death…" Tsuna breathed, feeling bile rise up in his throat. But he swallowed it down and forced himself to smile, nodding to the child and leading him up to his room.

( _And with each step he took he could feel the approval of the whispers, shadows giggling and singing and twisting and- He was going to be sick_ )


	3. Dear Tragic Lover

**Summery:** A Letter to the Tragic Lover

 **Dear Tragic Lover**

Dear Tragic Lover,

For all that I have loved you, craved you, chased after you, I am done. We got lost somewhere over the ocean drifts, and now I am gone. To me you were once my sun, my sky, my everything. You were the light in the dark and the candle burning steadily whenever the lights went out. Allas, it is no more. It seems the candle is gone, that the fire burns not. My Dear Tragic Lover, hater of pain and seeker of strange, we cannot run among metaphysical fields anymore. The paths into the nothingness are lost to me, and it seems that without you I can never leave home. My mind's walls are built once more, brick by brick and stone by stone, after you tore them down with your bleeding heart.

Thank you for living, Dear Tragic Lover. Thank you for breathing, Dear Tragic Lover. I wouldn't be where I am today without you and your madness, without having lived the days where you showed me what cannot be seen. I am better for my pain, for my loss and my story already written. I am better for having met you and for having seen.

Alas it cannot be, not anymore at least. My Dear Tragic Lover, we must separate, go east and west until the day we meet again on the other side of the world.

Goodbye, Dear Tragic Lover, I will miss your wild ways. Thank you you believing when no one else could stay.

Yours forever and into eternity,

The One Who was Lost Before He was Found


	4. Soldier I See

**Summery:** A poem dedicated to Hibari Kyoya

 **Soldier I See**

Your eyes are old, dear General.

What horrors have you seen?

Galaxies swirl in your silvery irises,

Both of them looking at me.

Each breath you take poisons you a little,

Slowly destroying your lungs.

Dear General, you stand on the front lines,

Unafraid of gunfire flying past.

Dear General, do you think yourself immortal?

Or do you perhaps wish to die?

Your hands are rough and calloused,

Your skin decorated with scars.

Might I touch them lovingly,

And ask you gain no more?

But battle thrives within your blood,

Chaos and Order both fight in your name.

You breath with tired breath, my dear.

Dear General who knows nothing else.


	5. The Overseer

( _I am the Overseer_ )

( _I am the one who watches and speaks_ )

( _I am the one who laments and weeps_ )

( _I am the writer, the watcher, the commentator, the one who waits_ )

( _I am the one who knows your fates_ )

( _I am the Overseer_ )

 **AN: Really short, I know. But I've gotten people asking who is speaking during the brackets and thought I'd explain. The person speaking in the brackets is a being called "The Overseer". Essentially, they are an all-knowing being unable to interact with the world through any other means than showing people outside of the world what is happening. They parrot other people's thoughts, show things from past or future events, laugh and gossip and spread rumors, and other things. Essentially, they are the author (me) showing the viewer (you) things I would otherwise not be able to show. They act as a medium between you and, the world you are seeing. They are also a convenient means of me setting tone of the story.**


	6. Tsuna POV of Mochida's Challenge

Being in a room with so many people was like drowning. Every step he took was stepping through thick syrup. His ears rung from the sounds and a headache building in his temples made him wish to turn around and walk away. But Tsuna couldn't-not without helping the Samurai first.

There was the roaring of clashing symphony songs, of different music that meshed together in ways that music shouldn't. The images were everywhere as well. Water dripped onto the floor and blended with all manner of other liquid-blood, urine and gasoline, just waiting to be ignited. Class lines blurred as knights stood next to fishermen and seamstresses, whores next to nobles and shoemakers. Birds danced with glowing fish, finger paint figures, small children and wild monkeys.

( _Tsuna supposed that this was what the other world appeared like. It was crazed and chaotic, making little sense to any who laid their eyes upon it_ )

Across from Tsuna a Samurai stood tall, haggard for all that he was proud. His skin was stained and covered in tiny scratches, the creature stretched lazily across his shoulders not having treated the man well at all. His armor ( _Samurai armor made from interlocking scales of a dragon slain by some distant knight in far off western lands, so different from the wize beasts who favored drifting about Asia_ ) bore many scratches as well and his sword was nowhere to be seen.

It was too bad. Tsuna had liked that sword.

"You!" roared Mochida Kensuke as he pointed a Shinai at Tsuna. His eyes narrowed, mouth drawn out into a snarl that appeared pained to Tsuna. It saddened him that the fae would drive Mochida to such lows. "You scum! Finally decided to show up? Fine. Then here are the rules of the challenge: The first person to score Ippon on the other wins. The prize is Kyoko!"

A of laughter rose up all at once, silent to all ears but his.

 **AN: I was originally going to write Chapter 11 "Bonfires" in Tsuna's POV, but Kyoya budded in, refused, and took over the chapter. Here is what's left of the original Tsuna POV.**


	7. The Great Hogwarts Escape

**Summery:** Tsuna dreams of Hogwarts.

 **The Great Hogwarts Escape**

Tsuna blinked.

It was bright. The walls glowed with soft color, pastels and laughter and sunlight mixed with blood and rock and age old stone. This castle, this school, this haven hidden away from burning fires and war cries, little safe spot for four friends that grew into something so much larger–

How did he get here?

…He couldn't quite recall.

"General?" He called out, searching, searching, searching for his friend. But the halls remained empty of his presence. So he took a step ( _it was so much more_ ) and ventured off to find him.

The world twisted and spun, laughter echoing around him, and he resisted the urge to let ope his mouth, to let free those sounds trapped inside him, that joy which bubbled up inside him, and just get lost.

No.

He had to find the General. He could get lost in this place later, when he had an anchor to pull him back.

He saw, then, for the briefest of moments ( _When the skies collided and green lights flashed and woman's screamed "MOVE ASIDE, GIRL!"_ ) a boy and a boy and a girl.

"Excuse me!" he called out, rushing forward. "Seer begs ye! Help, for I can't quite find my path."

The three–for they were three ( _or were they? They who stood before Death and the Death Bringer and his minions, who devour that which cannot be eaten and shall always come, and opened his arms and smiled and welcomed them, they three, us three, since the very start–was there a start?_ ) and Tsuna knew this ( _did he?_ ) even if nothing was ever certain–turned, glancing at one another in confusion.

"Excuse me?" The one who bore the weight asked, lightning crackling across his face, striking, like a snake, which would have it's meal.

"I don't know where I am," Tsuna told them, "And I wish to find the General before I become even more lost."

It was, perhaps, the most normal thing Tsuna had said in years.

"Oh, um." Destiny's Child looked to the One Who Favors Order, and The One Who Favors Chaos, and Tsuna watched. He always seemed to be watching.

"You're in Hogwarts," She said, who grew whiskers from her cheeks, and plucked the universe's secrets from her hidden tomes. She said it slowly, ( _Truly? You do not know?_ ) and seemed, like many did, confused. "Who's the General?"

"Oh dear," Tsuna said. "I am a very long way from home."

And then, just when Tsuna began to wonder how it was he came to be here, and how it was he was to go, he woke.

He sat up in bed and stared at his hands, wondering all the while, exactly where it was he had gone.

( _For sometimes dreams are more than dreams, and this one felt rather real_ )

 **AN: You can thank Tumblr for this. In other news, some see me on Tumblr! you can find me under metronomeihear!**


	8. Dreaming of Days Yet to Come

**Summery:** Sawada Nana dreams.

 **Dreaming of Days Yet to Come**

When Nana was young, she had a dream.

( _So many dreams, scattered like leaves caught in the wind, they went were they would and she could only follow_ )

It was a very vivid dream, one that stuck with her for years and years after. It was a beautiful dream, a wonderful dream, one she loved very, very much. She dreamed that she married a lion who crossed oceans to see her stars, that she would find within him a home she hadn't had before. She dreamed that like the lion, her own cub would be so strong, so wise, so kind.

She hummed as she cooked, a smile on her lips. Her belly swelled and she knew, she knew, that all would come to pass soon. ( _As all things did in the end as ever turning time kept marching on_ )

"It'll be great fun, won't it Tsu-kun?" She whispered in the quiet of her house, still as all the shadows and lights held their breath for her husband to come home.

( _And someplace, somewhere, all the world laughed_ )


	9. The Gift of Sight

**Summery:** A blind woman learns to see.

 **The Gift of Sight**

Once upon a time there was–

( _No? There wasn't? But I could have sworn–_ )

"Why do you cry?" a being asked, kneeling before a woman crying on the ground.

"I'm blind," she cries, desperate. "He blinded me."

( _Fingers digging, someone's screaming, why won't it stop?_ )

"Blinded?" the being asked, for it could not understand. How can one not see? How can one not look at the world and see it for all it's majesty?

"Do you wish to see?" the being asked, reaching out their hands ( _limbs like starlight, moon-dust, the void and beyond, what might reach for that which cannot be touched and holds all that cannot be held_ ) "I can make you see," they promised, tangling fingers in brown hair and gazing into bloody eyes. It dripped down her face, and she clawed at the sockets.

"Yes!" The woman cried. "Yes!"

"Okay."

( _And the world rose up and swallowed the darkness which hid her sight_ )


End file.
